Jade Darmawangsa is a YouTuber and digital marketing expert who loves to help others improve their social media game! Today, she's sharing her top tips to creating killer social media content.

You sit in bed scrolling through your Instagram feed when you realize your profile isn’t growing. You’ve tried everything, and making this “influencer” career happen seems to be feathering away. You feel stuck.

SAME.

Starting from scratch? Don’t you worry. I was exactly in your shoes, trust me.

A little bit of context, my name is Jade Darmawangsa and I’m an entrepreneur + digital marketer. I create direct and genuine advice on how to build your own personal brand and business through digital marketing solutions. From 0 to 50,000 total fans and followers, I have built my personal brand from the ground up through trials and tribulations.

Today I’m going to spill the most important things you need to know as an influencer. Keep reading to find out what they are!

1. Standing Out In A Crowded Niche

You’ve seen Instagram tell you random numbers and analytics about your account. But what does that data mean?

How can I use it to my full potential and STAND OUT.

This is a fan favorite technique I’ve taught. If you struggle being different from other similar pages, a huge method is "niching down".

The way you can niche down is by targeting your audience. Go into your instagram analytics and read what your demographic means.

For example: If your audience is mainly 20 - 25 year old females in Los Angeles, make sure you make content sensitive to LA culture and students!

This way your looks are targeted and have more relevance to the audience who actually cares. You might need to take more pictures of açaí bowl shops and soul cycle classes, but relevance is everything!

Experiment to what is popular in each age, gender, and location. It plays a huge part in increased engagement.

2. Content Is King, But Distribution Is Queen. You Need Both

You’ve heard the repetitive saying “post consistently”. However, it means nothing without spending as much time getting it out to the masses. You can’t just sit there on your phone hoping the “algorithm” is going to magically push your content. Luckily there’s a solution. I call it 50/50.

I’ve been doing this technique with my influencer clients and I’ve heard impressive results.

Get this. Set a timer for however long it take you to create the piece of content (photoshoot, writing a caption, etc.)

Then, spend as much time distributing it.

If it takes you 3 hours to complete the post, spend 3 hours:

DMing 100 people under relative hashtags
Promoting the post with Instagram Ads showing to 10,000 potential accounts
Replying to every comment and creating conversations outside just compliments

You work hard on your looks. Take your marketing just as seriously.

3. Show What Your Audience WANTS To See

Take a look at you feed—all the pretty pictures, outfits, and inspirational quotes. Now take a step back. How much of your content is for you compared to your audience?

I hate to break it to you, but the industry is getting more competitive. The only way to survive as an influencer is to give as much value to your audience.

The biggest mistake I see influencers make time to time is the fear to show vulnerability. People follow you, not because of the cute outfits or aesthetic feed, but because of the personality and story you share that makes them attracted to follow you.

Don’t be hesitant to do write paragraph–long captions and even just chat on Instagram Live. You need to make the heart to heart connection in order to build that true fanbase. Even if you aren’t looking flawless on camera, go ahead and still take that selfie! People want to see authentic and relatable content. Why? Because in life we all chase confidence. If you can be that confidence for others, they will engage and follow you. It starts with you!

I used to think I had to be PERFECT for social media. In my head I thought, If this photo isn’t filtered, edited, Face Tuned enough people will never like me. The moment I took a step away from my own ego and decided to create content helping others with their own brand, everything changed.

One year and 1.6 million total views later, I learned to turn each and every setback into a comeback, and I want to provide you that same value so you can succeed.

And hey! Don’t be afraid to have fun with it! My favorite content lately has been posting outfit pictures while writing 2 to 3 paragraph captions on the story of how I styled my outfits.

Here’s a look I did with a vintage Chanel belt mixed with thrifted clothes: